


Let You Down

by skitzofreak



Series: Calamity's Child [3]
Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Davits regrets, Draven POV about young Cassian, F/M, Mentions of canon typical violence, Mon Mothma POV on Jyn and Cassian and the rebellion, Prequel, Saw POV about young Jyn, Saw's developing madness, Spy Missions, Tumblr Prompt, and their consequences, mentions of character deaths, rated for darker themes, reflection on the meaning of history, reflections on the meaning of kindness, reflections on the meaning of sacrifice, war does not a healthy mind make
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-09
Updated: 2018-05-14
Packaged: 2019-03-29 06:12:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 8,043
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13921053
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skitzofreak/pseuds/skitzofreak
Summary: Saw Gerrera looks down at his best lieutenant, his warlord, his child, and knows that he has almost no kindness left. There is a great cavity where once it might have dwelled inside him, and the relentless pressure of the blood is caving in even that.For her sake, he thinks, he will dig deep, and give her what little kindness he can yet scrape before the Empire consumes the rest.





	1. these voices in my head get loud

**Author's Note:**

> This song would not get out of my head, and I started thinking about, though it written about a parent from the kid's perspective, it also sort of works from a parent's POV, too. In short, it made me think of Saw Gerrera about Jyn, and Davits Draven about Cassian (whose mirror chapter will be next).

_Feels like I’m on the edge right now_

_I wish that I could say I’m proud_

_I’m sorry that I let you down_

_Let you down_

_All these voices in my head get loud_

_I wish that I could shut them out_

_I’m sorry that I let you down_

_Let you down_

_\- Let You Down, by NF_

* * *

 

 

Jyn snaps Tallent’s right humerus with a sharp upward blow, and the little man bellows in pain and rage as she flips him neatly over her shoulder and to the dirt. Tallent is a poor fighter, raised soft in some city, and he thrashes wildly with no real grace or chance at catching Jyn in retaliation. But Saw has taught her to respect all threats, and quick as a thought his daughter slips away from the man’s reach and stands at the ready a few paces back, her eyes wary and her hands poised. The flickering lights of the old freighter outline her pale, sharp features into strange, wild shapes; the light gleams off her wide eyes and the thin sliver of teeth her snarl reveals.

(The rabid tannor-beast looked at him with blank, unseeing eyes, and Steela shot it through the heart without hesitating, and afterwards wrapped her chubby hands around his own and said, _no tears, little brother, when a thing has gone wild like that, it is kinder to end the suffering. You see? We have saved it.)_

She _is_ a little wild, his Jyn. Wild and dangerous, but not nearly as undisciplined or savage as she seems. Magva called her _Saw’s feral puppy_ once, and Saw had allowed Jyn to knock the older, stronger woman to the dirt to show that she would not be disrespected. She had been…twelve, at the time, he thinks. But the demonstration had been only that, a proper way to show both Magva and the listening soldiers that Saw’s child was no victim and no mindless beast. Jyn had knocked her into the dirt like a silent bolt fired from Saw’s side arm, but then she had pulled the woman back up and handed her back the knife she had stolen from Magva’s pocket in the few moments they had been in contact.

(Magva had laughed, and thereafter called her _Veldheer. On Ghormand,_ the woman had said afterwards to Saw, with the vicious little smile she always wore when speaking of her slaughtered home, _they would have named you a battle-king of old, and your little shadow would be veldheer, your warlord. Incidentally,_ she had added with no small relish, _it also means ‘executioner.’)_

(Saw does not need the ancient language of a massacred people to understand what Jyn is to him, but he accepts it as a sign of respect, all the same.)

Tallent has not yet learned such respect. Even now, with his arm dangling at an awkward angle and pain writ in all his features – and Jyn not even breathing hard, not a single hair on her head mussed – he stumbles towards her with anger in his eyes and vengeance in his heart. Saw looks upon him and sees his future: Reece Tallent, who rages at a galaxy that he believes _owes_ him something, he will push and push and push at anyone and anything until he gets what he wants, upon which moment he will realize that he wants _more_. So he will push again, until at last he pushes someone stronger and angrier than he, and they crush him.

“Kriffing little _bitch_ ,” Tallent hisses, lurching closer to Jyn’s still, wary figure in the poor light. His anger clouds his eyes so thickly that he does not even fumble for his blaster, simply raises his unbroken arm as if to strike Jyn across the face with the back of his hand. She does not shift, but her eyes flick down to his ribcage and then his elbow, marking the weak spots, marking her next targets.

If Saw allows this to continue, Tallent will be crushed before Saw ever gets any use from the newest member of his cadre. All the effort of recruiting the man will be a resource sink, and Saw will be one soldier less on this mission to Tamsye Prime.

( _People are not tools_ , Mothma had dared to admonish him once, _we cannot value a soldier for what tasks can be wrung from him before he falls_. Saw had not bothered to correct her misguided views – she confused soldiers for tools, and the galactic government as a project in need of repair. But soldiers were weapons, not tools, and the Empire was not some broken house or wounded beast to be fixed, if only she could find the right _tools_. Saw had done his best to explain this to her, to them all, but in the end, he had simply taken his armory and gone forth to kill what Mothma’s ilk would rather try and tame.)

(For the Empire was in truth the Republic grown wild and unseeing, was it not? _It is kinder to end the suffering_.)

“Enough,” he orders, and clumps between the limping fool and his death. The fool immediately opens his mouth to protest, but Saw’s old scars are beginning to pain him, and his limited patience is at an end. “Codo, ETA,” he snaps before Tallent can begin his whining tirade.

“Planet-fall in two hours, ten minutes,” the young soldier drawls, his tone taking on a satisfied edge that is surely for Jyn’s benefit. Codo knows that Tallent’s resentment of Jyn is mutual, and this display of her superior prowess is a good chance for Codo to back the winning side, for Jyn is more likely to survive, more likely to lead someday in this neverending war. There is more to it, of course, than mere inter-unit politics. Codo has been eyeing Jyn with greater appreciation these days, his admiration for her skill and leadership tinted now with a dawning awareness of her budding breasts and fading childhood softness. Jyn, of course, handles it with the stern indifference Saw expects of his best lieutenant. If Codo oversteps, he will learn respect as surely as Tallent is failing to learn it now.

Tallent is glaring around Saw’s armored sides – his blaster is still holstered, his boot-knife on the side of the broken arm and thus difficult to retrieve, and his hand-to-hand is abysmal, so for all his glower, he is no threat. Jyn could kill him in a minute. Of course, she would not; she is young yet and still has a faith in people, a shining hope that if she shows them her worth, they will respect and honor her.

Saw looks down at Tallent, and has no such hope. _I see your future_ , he thinks, and knows that if the man tries to press the issue of Jyn’s authority on this upcoming mission, he will not survive even the minute Jyn would have given him. Saw’s hands are older now, but strong enough yet to snap a neck.

“Two hours,” Saw repeats, and waits to see if he must kill his recruit.

“More than enough time to get that arm set,” Magva calls from somewhere near the cockpit of the freighter, her voice ringing out over the heads of a dozen warriors, who watch as quietly and thoughtfully as Jyn herself.

Tallent sneers, turns, and walks toward the little medical bay in the back of the freighter. Saw grants him the chance to live a little longer.

“I wouldn’t have broken any more bones,” Jyn says quietly from behind him. “Not right before a mission.”

Saw looks down at his side where she has appeared like a silent wraith, her hair braided tightly to her skull, her hand resting lightly on her blaster as she watches Tallent’s back retreating. Her face is set in a wary scowl, her shoulders tight – she is angry with him, his Jyn, his wraith-child, angry that he interfered in her battle, angry in her belief that he has undercut her in front of the soldiers. He recalls suddenly that she is young yet, for all her battle experience and clever tactics on the field, and sensitive in her own adolescent way. She believes that he interfered because he does not trust her self control.

(Idryssa gave her a doll when she was nine years old, and Jyn had brought it to Saw with a bewildered expression on her small, round face. Her hands clutched the flimsy limbs of the old toy, but there was a desperation in her wide eyes that made his fingers flex on the faded flag of Onderon around his shoulders – the flag that once bore his sister’s casket to her early grave, the flag that he bore now as a reminder of the high cost of war, the high cost of putting down a rabid animal, the high cost of kindness – _We carry only what we need_ , he had said at last, and they had spent an hour practicing one-handed blaster shots, with the doll as the target of opportunity. When they left that place, they left a pile of burned rags and broken glass doll eyes behind, and neither ever looked back.)

“We have no use for such displays,” he tells Jyn firmly. “If he survives today, he will learn respect on the field. If he dies on Tamsye Prime, then the lesson of this fight is wasted.”

“And we’d have to deal with the corpse,” her nose wrinkles as she sweeps a glance around the packed freighter, displaying a little more of her youth in her obvious disgust. He has never known her to be squeamish, but corpses are, he agrees, unpleasant companions in tight quarters such as these.

They lapse into silence; around them, others are murmuring as they talk through their part of the oncoming battle plan, or give one another reassurances that they will surely escape the shadow of death that hovers over them every time they draw weapons against the Empire. Saw does not insult Jyn by assuming that she needs to do either. They stand and watch their cadre prep blasters and blades, tuck little heirlooms and good luck charms into clothing, whisper prayers or quiet confidences, and they do none of these things. Jyn has been prepped for this mission since they stepped onto the freighter, and Saw…

It has been a long time since he was anything other than ready for the end.

( _I’m sorry_ , the Togruta sobbed into her hands, _I’m sorry, she fell, I tried but I couldn’t - it doesn’t bring her back but I am so, so sorry._ To this day, Saw can still hear the exact timbre of the girl’s voice as it ricochets inside his skull with the whistle of the wind around a falling body. _So, so sorry_.)

(To this day, he is still not certain if he said it aloud, or merely thought it – _it could just as easily have been me_. _It should have been_.)

(Saw is still not sure of the truth of that. But he is trying to be kind, as Steela was. He will end the suffering.)

He feels it in his bones, suddenly, the long years of standing with violence at the tips of his fingers and his doom breathing down his neck. The weight of the blood, all of it, his own, his cadre’s, his enemies’ (his family’s), every drop taken or sacrificed, every thin trickle or thick gush running through his fingers or slipping into his eyes or mouth – the weight crushes down on his shoulders and spine, a great wave forcing him to bend. It compresses his lungs and forces all the air out.

He takes a deep breath, slow and steady and stubborn (it is not enough, it is never enough, he cannot force enough air into this chest anymore; the medical droid recommends a breathing apparatus, and on days like this he begins to consider it).

“Saw?” Jyn’s voice is pitched low, under the susurrus of the cadre’s battle prep, and her eyes are still straight ahead, watching the door of the medical bay. But he can hear the shadow of worry in her tone, the way it twists her voice into something fierce but still so…so young.

( _We must be kind, little brother_.)

“He’s resentful,” Jyn continues before he can summon the strength to speak around the crushing of his lungs. “It might make him dangerous on the field.” Saw’s scowl deepens, because she is not wrong in this. A man who is still unproven, new to the cadre and clearly still wrapped around his own interests, his own pride…such a man is more a liability to his own side than he is an asset. Saw would not have brought him along on this op at all, were he in better straits and under less pressure to act before this opportunity passes.

Jyn jerks her chin towards the medical bay, and then, in an even quieter voice, tentative as she has not been since she was nine years old and holding an old rag doll in her hands, she asks, “Should I…take care of it?”

And Saw considers it.

He is not so hard up for soldiers that he must resort to an angry fool, and on the field, a quiet knife or a stray blaster shot can end a world of troubles before they begin.

( _We carry only what we need_.)

Jyn does not shift her weight, or turn her eyes from the medical bay door, but somehow Saw is made aware of how small she seems next to him, her head barely at his shoulder, her old fatigues tucked in carefully but not quite well enough to hide how they hang off her slight frame. She has long ago forsaken those childish pigtails, but she has also refused to cut off her hair entirely, as would be most practical.

( _On Aria Prime, my mothers used to braid it into these elaborate patterns_ , Lyra laughed as she poked at the wedding flowers he had brought for her, tucking them into her escaping locks. _I can never hope to replicate them on myself, but someday, should I ever have a child…_ Afterwards, Saw had remembered only that she glowed that day, despite the simplicity of her clothing and the haphazard braiding of her long, dark hair. She had smiled and worn flowers and married a man that Saw had little use for, but the Lion of Onderon had at least understood then what the shining in her eyes had meant. It is harder to remember, now, what that had looked like.)

Jyn wears her hair in a long, tight braid, simple and functional, and Saw does not tell her to cut it.

(He should. It is a liability, easy to grab, easy to light afire, a vulnerability. Foolish. Sentimental.)

“No,” he says at last. “Leave him to the battle. Leave him to his own fate.”

Jyn’s shoulders relax almost imperceptibly, and the scowl softens on her face in a way only visible to someone who knows where to look. She is pleased not to be his _veldheer_ today, pleased that he has taken this ugly responsibility from her.

Next time she asks, he knows with sudden clarity, he will not hesitate. He will not shield her. He cannot afford it. He needs a weapon, the Empire has gone rabid and he must be kind.

The weight of the blood crushes his lungs again, and he knows that if he asks it of her, Jyn will step willingly under that weight alongside him. Already she inches down that path, her sharp, boney shoulder brushing his armored one. Already she watches the medical bay door with her hand on her blaster and whispers the question of a warlord, of an executioner.

( _If ever I had a child_ , Lyra smiles at him with cautious hope in her eyes and flowers in her braided hair.)

( _A soldier is more than the tasks we can ring from him_ , Mothma shakes her head gravely with disappointment on her austere face.)

 ( _I used to have dolls_ , Jyn whispers with her hands tight around the toy that Idryssa should never have given her.)

( _We must be kind, little brother_ , Steela holds his hands and presses her forehead to his until the tears dry up and he begins to understand.)

Saw Gerrera looks down at his best lieutenant, his warlord, his child, and knows that he has almost no kindness left. There is a great cavity where once it might have dwelled inside him, and the relentless pressure of the blood is caving in even that.

Sensing the weight of his gaze, she turns and looks up at him, and in the dim light, he can see the hard lines already showing through the soft curves of her lingering youth. Lines around her eyes, faint but definite, pale scars against pale skin peeking out from the cuffs and neckline of her old, baggy clothes – the galaxy has not been kind to Jyn. Saw has been as kind as he was ever able.

For her sake, he thinks, he will dig deep, and give her what little kindness he can yet scrape before the Empire consumes the rest.

“Final checks,” he orders her, his voice soundings strange and rough in his own ears. She does not seem to hear it, though, and goes without comment to run through procedural checks with the landing team. Soon, they will be on Tamsye Prime. It is not so far from Yavin IV, not for someone as clever and adaptable as Jyn.

“The _gek_ is out,” Magva grunts from a few steps away, where she is carefully smearing dark grease paint around her eyes, her favorite war paint. She jerks her head towards the medical bay, where Tallent reemerges with a bonesetter holding steady his arm and a fuming scowl warping his face. Magva rubs her warpaint close to her eyelid and gives Saw one of her harsh, toothy smiles, the one that means she is only seconds from brutal violence. She will never admit that she likes the little _veldheer_ , not in so many words, and Jyn is still young enough not to understand Magva’s brand of painful loyalty. “Should I…take care of it?” Magva chuckles, eyeing Saw through her ink-stained fingers, but there is a menace under the joking tone that tells him she does not offer in jest.

“No,” he says again, and turns toward the cockpit. “Leave him to his fate.” The words push down on him this time, the phantom weight of yet more blood to be shed.

“She won’t thank you,” Magva calls after him, perceptive even as she descends into her customary battle madness. “Whatever you’re planning, she won’t thank you for it.” But her caustic voice is already fading under the creak of his bones, grinding down under the weight of the blood.

Saw takes another labored breath and briefly considers sending a message to Mothma, that the woman might rightly know what a gift she has received when Jyn comes to her door. A list of Jyn’s accomplishments, a holovid of her training regime, perhaps, or simply a few pointed words on the value of loyalty.

Ultimately, he decides against it. Mothma is soft and disconnected from the reality of the war, but she is not blind. And Jyn will be better off without Saw’s meddling.

Jyn will be better off.

Saw settles his torn cape and waits for the freighter to reach Tamsye Prime, waits for the battle that will surely come, waits for the moment that he will have to reach inside himself and tear out the last of his kindness, before he drags Lyra’s child further down into the blood. It is a sacrifice for more than personal reasons – she is a beautiful weapon, forged in fire hotter than the Alliance dares to strike – but he can do this. He can give that up. He has weapons enough, for the task he must yet do.

( _No tears, little brother. We must be kind.)_

Saw has never truly been kind, but for her, he will try.

Saw closes his eyes, and waits.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies if this is a bit hard to follow, since I think that Saw’s mental state was already deteriorating at this point. At the least, the man had a lot of baggage, and many ghosts.
> 
> Saw Gerrera’s sister, [Steela](http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Steela_Gerrera), died in 20 BBY during the Clone Wars. She was flung to a cliff’s edge, and Ahsoka Tano was Force-lifting her to safety when the Jedi Padawan was shot, and dropped Steela to her death. Saw Gerrera took the flag that Steela’s casket was wrapped in, and wore it as a cape thereafter.
> 
> [Reece Tallent](http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Reece_Tallent) was a Partisan who resented Jyn, and betrayed Saw on Tamsye Prime, leading to his death at Saw’s hand there. I didn’t write Tallent exactly as he is in canon, because I really did not much care for Rebel Rising. So yes, probably some inconsistencies. What matters is that he didn’t like Jyn, wasn’t a great rebel soldier, contributed to Saw’s decision to abandon Jyn, and died when Saw shot him in the head.
> 
> [Magva Yarro](http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Magva_Yarro) became a rebel when she survived the [Ghorman Massacre](http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Ghorman_Massacre), and I figure she was probably just a little unbalanced (she is a grim woman with heavy, smudged black warpaint around her eyes, and she was basically Saw on a smaller scale after he died).
> 
> I believe that Saw was Lyra’s friend, and didn’t much care about Galen. In this story, he was at her wedding (the braids thing is a sort of vague idea I have that Alderaanian hair culture might have spread to other Core worlds, too. So to Lyra, braids would mean something, and that makes the fact that her own hair was in a messy twist while her daughter’s hair was neatly braided when she died just a little bit heartbreaking.)
> 
> I always found it strange that Saw was so surprised when he met Jyn in the movie and discovered that she was not a rebel herself. I could never figure that out, until [@anghraine](http://anghraine.tumblr.com/post/171675470523/ive-always-thought-it-oddwell-shittythat-saw) on tumblr mused that he probably convinced himself that Jyn would go to the Alliance to keep fighting, never considering that she fought the Empire because she was loyal to him, not the Cause. That, at last, makes sense of his otherwise baffling surprise.


	2. wish that I could say I'm proud

_Feels like we're on the edge right now_  
_I wish that I could say I'm proud_  
_I'm sorry that I let you down (let you down)_

 

* * *

 

 

Cassian sets his blaster down on the cheap plas-steel desktop with the careful precision of a jeweler, or a bomb-tech, and Davits knows immediately that he should have gone to Corellia instead.

No, no, that’s the wrong way to think. He’s a Commander now, responsible for every field operation in Rebel Intelligence, with dozens of operatives and hundreds of assets to manage. His own field days are severely limited, if not over entirely. (He’ll be lucky if they are over, lucky if he keeps enough people alive and functional that he doesn’t have to go out there and do everything himself any more. If they reach that stage, the Alliance is well and truly kriffed and every action Davits Draven takes will be nothing more than a final _fuck you_ to the Empire as he withers and dies with the rest of the galaxy’s hope.)

Cassian – Lieutenant Junior Grade Andor, promoted only slightly more recently than Davits himself – stands at attention in front of him, spine straight, hands behind his back, eyes unfocused in a thousand yard stare that would be convincingly unaffected to someone who didn’t know the boy like Davits did. 

(In his head, Mothma raises one meticulously shaped eyebrow and murmurs _shall we yet call him_ _a boy, Commander?_ and looking up at that rigid jawline (only just covered in a thin, dark beard, not a bad effort for a sixteen year old)…no, not a boy anymore. Not for a while, perhaps.)

“Sit down,” he orders, trying to sound brisk and professional, and only just missing it, his voice a touch too hoarse. Trying too hard, Dav, relax. Refocus. Think of the op. Actions, results, consequences.

His operative sits down in the hard, plastic chair in front of Davits’ beat up old desk, both pieces of mismatched furniture salvaged from a bombed out school on some former base. It gives a strange undertone to this meeting, as if he is some hard-nosed teacher and Cassian is his student come to explain why he failed the last exam. ( _Well, you’re a fast learner, Draven, I’ll give you that,_ Airen Cracken spits into one of the smoldering fires of the bombed-out machine factory, _but the real test won’t be if you can make it to the end of this. The real test_ – and that old bastard grins with a mouth full of bloody teeth and points at the long trail of refugees picking their way through the wreckage towards the waiting Alliance transport – _the real test, son, is whether or not you can bring anyone with you to the finish._ )

(Six years later, Davits found himself in yet another sea of frozen wreckage, looking at a boy with a stolen blaster and ghosts in his eyes. There’s an empty space on his transport (several, in fact, this mission went sideways in a hurry and he is lucky to get out with his skin in tact and a quiet boy with a blaster at his side). Davits only hesitates a moment. _Can you bring anyone with you to the finish?)_

There is blood under Lieutenant Andor’s fingernails.

Actions, Davits reminds himself sternly. Results. Consequences.

Cassian is still staring over his shoulder, eyes darker than usual, thinly-bearded jaw set, red-tinged hands flat on his thighs and his back straight. Just the way Davits taught him, since he was nine years old and wandering the wasteland of Fest’s war-torn capital city. Seven years of training, and here is Davits’ result.

He picks up the datapad and flicks it on, selecting the data packet that the analysts had dumped on them two months ago, the packet he had passed on to one of his best (his youngest) operatives. The packet (the dark circles under Cassian’s eyes are more pronounced than he’s seen them since before the boy hit puberty) that Davits should have taken on himself. Or at least passed on to one of the older operatives. But Anta’onis was working three ops at once, Grig was running dark on Mon Cala, Rikh-aila was working high profile in the Core, Nal Danno was wholly unsuited to a mission this delicate in a place as dangerous as Corellia…

Davits scrolled to the new files in the data packet, where short, succinct sentences outlined pertinent information. A clear and concise format: actions, results, consequences. ( _Yes, sir,_ he tells the impassive face of General Cracken, ignoring the polite disapproval on Bail Organa’s face as the Senator looks on, _Cassian Andor is the right man for the job,_  and he turns to look Organa right in his judgmental eye, _whether we like it or not_.)

Cassian had been silent when he received his data packet, a brief nod to his commander as the weight settled around his shoulders, and if ever Davits could claim to be proud of anything, it was that. Cassian sits silently now, in the aftermath, staring into the dim shadows of Davits’ office, and if ever Davits could admit to being ashamed of anything -  (Hah, ‘ _office_ ,’ as if this windowless labyrinth half a klick under Dantooine’s wasted surface was some kind of real seat of government power, as if the Alliance was something more than desperation and scraps at the moment. Someday they will be more, they must be more, but for now, for now the Head of Rebel Intelligence: Field Operations has an office the size of a broom closet, and the Senators and Generals he answers to have little better.

“Parameters,” Davits says, watching Cassian over the top of the datapad and ignoring the bitter taste of his thoughts spreading over his tongue.

“Infiltration,” Lieutenant Junior Grade Andor replies immediately. “Tyrena City is a favored attraction for off duty TIE pilots and support personnel. Several of the major hotels and resorts also have ties to underground Corellian City gangs, providing high-taxed or illegal goods to the Imperial troops.”

“Mission objective,” Davits prompts, even though he knows, they both know, but this is the script, the rhythm by which they live their lives. ( _Children need structure, Captain Draven_ , the fussy Bothan in charge of the base’s orphanage taps his furred foot as they watch the ten-year-old boy disassemble and reassemble the sniper rifle Davits has promised to teach him to use when he’s tall enough to hold it entirely off the ground, _they require it to feel safe_.)  

“Recruiting baseline,” his operative says, and Davits finds his eyes landing on the boy’s right shoulder, where a faint crease in the jacket, the kind left behind by a rifle-strap, tells him Cassian went to the shooting range before he reported in. There is a rhythm to his words, as well, and Davits can almost see him rehearsing this report as he kneels in the range with his rifle raised. Inhale, aim, fire. “Establish a secure means of identifying and contacting recruits,” inhale, aim, fire, “for Alliance strike aviation corps,” inhale, aim, fire, “by piggybacking on the smuggling network.”

( _Tell me the kid has a hobby, at least, Dav,_ Merrick sighs as he leans against the bulkhead and tugs on his mustache, watching twelve-year-old Cassian Andor raising the rifle and aiming at the artificial targets. _Kids should have hobbies_.)

( _He has a hobby,_ Davits nods to the range as the rifle whines and flashes green, over and over, inhale, aim, fire. Merrick shakes his head, but they both know there is nothing else to say.)

 “Actions,” he says now. He already knows the answer, has read the report, has seen the blood crusted under short fingernails. He asks anyway, because this is the only safety he could ever give the boy in the warzone with the cheap blaster and the haunted eyes.

“Established contact with local smuggler, asset number five-seven-five-alpha,” Cassian rattles off the designator easily, but then he hesitates, his eyes still blank but a hitch in his breathing, a falter in the rhythm. “Bel - Bell Hawkins.” Inhale, aim, _miss_. The boy swallows, his thousand-yard stare suddenly intense instead of distant; if Davits turns to look, he could likely follow Cassian’s eyeline to the large crack in the wall behind his head. “Establish rapport with the asset,” he says, his voice cracking slightly on _rapport,_ and oh, Force, he is so fucking _young_. “gather intelligence pertaining to supply lines, drop off points, and potential recruit gathering points.” He’s struggling to get back on his rhythm, but there’s still a slight hitch to it, inhale, aim, fire, but he’s clipping the target, not hitting it dead on.

Davits looks down at the datapad and reads the asset report for Asset #575A – Human, nongendered, nineteen years old. Popular with local smugglers, the point of contact for new customers in the smuggling pipeline. The kind of person who was likely attractive, daring, friendly, and easy to like – the kind of person who could sell things to Imperials without fear of being turned in. The kind of person a boy with no friends and too many enemies might enjoy spending time with, might find it easy to _establish rapport_.

“Results,” Davits says as neutrally as he can; there is a time and place for judgment, but even though he’s never been a parent and can’t for the life of him remember what it was like to be a teenager himself, he’s smart enough to know that this is neither that time nor that place.

Cassian’s hands curl slowly on his thighs, tight fists against his legs, the bloody nails tucked away from sight but somehow even more present in the room now. “Objective achieved,” he says after a long moment, his voice painfully flat, no breaks but no rhythm either.

Part of Davits wants to leave it alone, move on, dismiss the boy and write up his own summary and analysis of this op, and pass it up to Cracken for review. There will be follow on orders, of course, and Davits has a good idea already of what those will be and who he can send to implement them. Tyrena is prepped, the pipeline set up, and if they play it right, they can start recruiting pilots, mechanics, suppliers. It’s a successful mission, _objective achieved_ , _good job, Lieutenant, here is your next assignment, go get some sleep_.

( _We can’t just let it happen, Dav_ , Brenna whispers against the back of his neck, her arms tight around him as she watches Coruscant fall away behind them, the other refugees fleeing the purge on the capital as a new flag rises over the Senate. _We can’t be the kind of people who just shrug our shoulders and go on with our business.)_

 _(_ A breath, her fingers digging into his shirt and her heartbeat thumping hard against his back, and he is so scared of where this is going, so scared of where she is heading but he already knows she will go without him if he refuses. _Can we?)_

No. He never could just let things happen. Not even after Brenna – well.

So he leans back in his chair and sets his datapad down, and waits until Cassian reluctantly drops his eyes from the wall to finally look his commander in the face. He waits a beat longer, giving the boy time to see what’s coming and prepare himself.

“Elaborate.”

Cassian closes his eyes. When he opens them again, they are red-rimmed, and the ghosts that Davits hasn’t seen in a few years are lurking just under the surface. “Asset was invaluable in gathering data and introducing me to - ” he pauses, grimaces, but it’s too late, once personal pronouns have been used in a report, it’s almost impossible to go back to impersonal, detached narration. The lieutenant isn’t giving a report, now he’s telling a story, acknowledging that he is a character within it. Davits doesn’t call him out on it, simply waits in silence, watching.

“They introduced me to other contacts, showed me good spots to observe the Imperials,” Cassian takes a shallow, steadying breath, but his hands are still in fists and his eyes are on Davits’, unhappy but steady. “They…helped me handle some of the secondary targets of opportunity that arose.”

Some supply caches, Davits recalls from the report. A few trackers dropped on semi-important Imperial officials. Useful bits and bobs, nothing that would change the course of the war but better than the handful of _nothing_ that some operatives came back with, most times.

But this isn’t the point of the story, is it? This isn’t why he’s disrupted the rhythm of the debrief. He folds his hands across his stomach (which is rolling inside of him with disgust and anger because _shit, Dav, what have you done to this kid? What are you still doing? Can’t you just …stop?)_ and he tilts his chin down, inviting.

“And then they tried to sell me to the Imperial commander at the nearest base,” Cassian’s voice is even flatter than before, hollow, and Davits can’t help it, his eyes flick down to the boy’s fists. “They needed the credits to pay off their indentured servitude to the smuggler boss.”

He shouldn’t ask, but he can see the expectation in Cassian’s eyes and this is the only safety he has to give, this structure, this rhythm, so he does it anyway. “Results?”

The boy inhales. “Asset neutralized,” _aim_ , “confirmed kill.” _Fire._

 _Armed struggle_ , the report read. _Knife to the left lung. Confirmed kill. Body disposed of in the hotel incinerator._

Davits nods. “Understood.”

And because he has nothing else to give, he stays silent as his operative hunches over suddenly and digs his bloody hands into his short hair. For several long minutes, there is nothing but the harsh sound of the boy’s shuddering gasps and the echoes of long-gone voices in Davits’ head.

Eventually, the boy takes one last long, painful breath, inhale, exhale.

Lieutenant Junior Grade Andor sits up. His eyes and nose are red, dark circles under his eyes stark against the grey cast to his skin, and his hair is a mess where his clammy hands had twisted through it. But his jaw is set and his breathing is even, and he looks at Commander Draven with nothing in his face but expectation.

Davits swallows back the bile and gives what he owes. “Consequences,” he says, back on script.

“Network established, Tyrana prepped for recruiting, operative escaped clean.” Lieutenant Andor’s mouth twists ironically on the last word, but technically it’s true – so long as no one (living) identified him, or followed him back to base, then he walked away clean. Ready for his next assignment.

“Understood,” Davits says, because it is. He does. “Your next packet is in your account. Mission start time tomorrow at zero-three-hundred. Dismissed.”

The operative gets to his feet and comes briefly to attention, the only form of a salute he has ever given Davits, the only form Davits has ever allowed. He should let it go, should let it end here, but _we can’t be the kind of people, Dav_ , so he clears his throat before Andor can turn and walk away and the soldier looks down at him expectantly, though his gaze is still far away, peering through a sniper’s scope, empty of anything but the mission.

And the words freeze in his throat, because what the hell is there to say? _Well done? You handled that correctly? Glad you didn’t die?_

“I recommend you report to medical for a sleep aid,” he says, knowing already that it’s a stupid thing to say, a waste of air. The boy won’t go. The soldier is scared to. But it’s all Davits has to offer, all he can attempt to give. He has no other mercy to offer, no way to give the boy an out that won’t somehow negate the threat that they both know hangs over the galaxy. How many other scruffy, determined little boys were left behind in that bombed out city on Fest? In all the bombed out cities across the galaxy? How many died on Geonosis, on Raydonia, how many more would die if the Empire was left unchecked, unpunished for the atrocities like Antar or Noult?

Davits can’t shield Cassian from this world any more than he can erase the blood under his fingernails (not when the blood under Davits’ own fingernails is so far imbedded he doesn’t even have to see it to know it’s there anymore). He can’t give the boy a life away from this – but he can, at the least, offer him the small hope of a night’s rest. A bitter pill for both of them, perhaps, but that is the reality they live in. Actions. Results.

Consequences.

Cassian meets his eyes one more time, and Davits looks into the mirror and tries not to hate it. “Understood,” the soldier says quietly, because it is. He does.

Davits should have gone to Corellia.

The hell of it is, he thinks as he looks across his battered, stolen desk at Cassian’s blank face, the hell of it all is, even if he’d known then what he knows now, even if he could do it all over again –

( _Cassian Andor is the right man for this job, whether we like it or not_ )

\- he wouldn’t have.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Tyrena](http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Tyrena) was a resort city on Corellia popular with Imperials, and the Alliance used it as a major recruiting ground for pilots and other aviation related personnel. 
> 
> All the atrocities Davits thinks about at the end came from [this list](http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Category:Genocides_and_massacres)of genocides and massacres, and were all things the Empire had done by this time period (Cassian is 16, so ~10 years before Rogue One/A New Hope).


	3. I'm sorry that I let you down

 

 

Cassian Andor stands in front of Jyn Erso with a squad of some of the most dangerous rebels in the Alliance (possibly in the galaxy), and Mon Mothma feels despair clawing at her heart. If ever future historians study this part of galactic history, if the Alliance is not simply wiped from the records and forgotten, she thinks that this will be marked as one of their lowest moments. This will be, perhaps, their greatest failure.

The metal creaks beneath her feet as she shifts to look closer at the story unfolding below her. She stands on the catwalks of the hangar, an isolated spot just over the smallest shuttle bay where even the maintenance techs never go and most droids cannot even navigate the narrow metal walkway. Up here, among the hanging cranes and emergency firelines and swinging lights, she can see most of the hangar floor without being visible herself. Up here, the noise of the hangar is present but distant. Up here, she can pretend sometimes that she is merely a tiny cog in a vast machine, too small for her choices to have terrible consequence, too insignificant for life or death to balance on her words. She found this place years ago, one night while pacing restlessly through the echoing empty temple where the fledgling Alliance once huddled in fear of the relentless forces of the new Empire. Only Bail ever disturbed her here, though Mothma suspects that a few others know of the place, know of her preference for solitude here. Airen, of course, and probably Davits, maybe one or two of the higher ranking Security personnel.

She wonders briefly if Captain Andor knows of her little refuge, then shuts the thought away, because it hardly matters at the moment and something of greater interest is happening beneath her perch. Cassian Andor barks an order at the deadly squad behind him – ah, no, she must be politic, always politic – he speaks sharply to the group of random people who are certainly only having a bit of a chat together.  They scatter, moving with intent, but of course not any unified purpose involving leaving the base, as they have been expressly ordered not to do. The captain does not watch them go, instead he walks across the short distance to where Jyn Erso stands, her head tilted back to look up at him, her gloved hands opening and closing slowly as if the young woman does not quite know what to do with them.

From this height and distance, Mothma cannot make out a word they are saying, but then, what words are necessary when she can see their faces?

Unbidden, Mothma thinks suddenly of a Council meeting years ago, when Saw Gerrera yet counted himself among the Alliance, when Bail still told an eight-year-old Leia that the meetings she was sometimes party to were only “philosophical debates among friends.” Mothma has said nothing of it to the woman herself, but she remembers Jyn. She had not known the girl’s true name, her history, but she had seen the fire even then, seen the way the little girl stood with her hands behind her back and her chin high, her green eyes darting from face to face like she was searching for threats. Mothma remembers the way Saw had laid his heavy hand on those narrow shoulders and the child had stood even straighter, the fierce rebel child of a proud soldier. She wonders what Saw thought of his little soldier when he saw her again. Was he still so proud? Angry? Had he even known her again, after all this time? Captain Andor’s report of the mission to Jedha is…sparse in that arena.

Captain Andor. Oh, Force, another face that she can recall when it was small and round and solemn, unmarked by the hard lines that she can see, even from here, etched around his eyes and mouth. He was…ah, nine, maybe ten standard years when Davits brought him in, and so thin her own stomach ached to look at him. And when she had attempted to welcome him, he had thanked her, in his soft, boyish voice, for the chance to fight against the Empire.

If ever historians study this Alliance, there are things she knows they will never find in the records, because she stood in Command herself and watched Davits Draven and Airen Cracken erase them.

She had given Davits hell for recruiting a child, even induced Bail and Tynnra to help, Bail with his pragmatic optimism and Tynnra with her endless reams of data on the detrimental affects of warfare on child development. Davits had stared at Mothma, nodded noncommittally at Bail, and cut Tynnra off with a curt _he’s already affected_. Airen had been no better, sighing in that weary but resolute manner of his and signing off on Tano’s request for more agents in her slowly growing deep-cover network.

Five years later, she recalls standing in Command and watching a restless, irate Davits pace through the cluttered space, barking at the hapless comm tech for status updates on a young operative out on his first solo mission. She recalls a few days afterwards, standing beside a silent Davits in the medwards, looking down on that same operative (still so skinny, still so solemn), and praying that if ever the children of the future studied the Alliance, they would be merciful in their judgement.

Mothma curls her hands around the metal railing tightly, watching as Cassian circles Jyn, as Jyn looks up at him with light in her eyes and a faint smile on her lips. Mothma recalls the fierce desperation in the girl’s eyes when they threw Galen Erso’s name in her face. Mothma recalls the empty, hollow way the boy had reported Galen Erso’s death. More clearly than the rest, she pictures both of them in that failed meeting just a few hours past, Cassian Andor’s studied impassivity as he reported to the Council, Jyn Erso’s burning passion as she demanded their action. Mothma’s datapad has a half-finished document already, detailing the Council meeting as best she can. If ever there is a historical record made of this desperate hour, she is determined that it include a rebel whose voice wavered with grief on her father’s name but echoed through the chamber when she spoke of _hope_.

Mothma’s hands ache on the metal rail, the edges digging into her fingers. She remembers another young woman, standing before a crowd of Senators and calling for action, calling for compassion, calling for courage. _We are creating the world that we will gift to our children_ , she said in one of her more memorable speeches, and Mothma remembers how she made even that fairly standard senatorial rhetoric sound new and honest and _vital._ She remembers the light in that woman’s eyes, too, how brilliantly she had shone. What would she think now, of the Alliance she helped birth? What would she think of that proud little girl at Gerrera’s side? Of the solemn, thin boy thanking them for the chance to fight?

What would she think of Mothma?

Below her, the girl smiles up at the boy, the light catching in her eyes differently from the way it had in the Council chamber, but no less brilliant. The lines on the captain’s face are deep, the scars on the rebel’s hands obvious even from here. But all Mothma can see as she looks down are thin shoulders and rounded cheeks, the children this Alliance was meant to shelter, the world they were meant to gift them now lying on the knife’s edge of all-out war (worse, if this Death Star really can do what they say, if it can kill _planets_ in one strike, there will be no war at all).

Someone calls to the captain from a nearby stack of crates, and he steps away from Jyn Erso with obvious reluctance, pulling himself upright and visibly ordering his face into neutrality (visible to Mothma, at least, because his back is the rest of the hangar, and only she can see from her vantage point, see but do nothing about it – the painful story of her entire political career). Cassian stops abruptly, glances upward, and for a moment she thinks she’s been found out, but then she realizes that his eyes are actually closed, as if he is thinking something through, or perhaps praying. Does Captain Cassian Andor pray? She has watched him work and fight and bleed - all on her order - for fifteen years, and to her shame, she does not know.

But then, there are already so many things she is ashamed of, what is one more?

Captain Andor turns on his heel suddenly, and Jyn Erso spins back to look at him at almost the same moment, the connection so clear between them that Mothma almost thinks she can see it’s shape. She can no longer see his face, and still the noise and distance defeat her hearing, but whatever he says, Jyn walks immediately back to his side, and together they pace underneath the catwalk and out of her sight.

If ever her people study this rebellion, she wonders if they will mark this moment as significant, if they will know just how much hung on the few hours between a chaotic meeting in a Council chamber and a quieter meeting in a hangar.

A few launch pads over, she can just make out a hulking black security droid walking into a stolen Imperial shuttle. The droid appears to be carrying a large crate of...explosives. From her angle, she can just see the top of a Human head, dark tangled hair in a rough tail, pilot's goggles perched haphazardly on top. The droid hides the man from view to anyone on the ground, but she can see. She can see, and yet do nothing. For once, this feels almost like a blessing.

A passing security guard sees the droid and changes course, angling to intercept.

Mothma thinks of history, and hope.

She pulls her datapad from her belt and taps in a priority message, just a quick line to Major Derlin, their acting Chief of Base Security. Across the hangar, the security guard suddenly stops and grabs his comm unit, clearly answering an urgent call. He hesitates, looking sideways at the droid disappearing into the Imperial shuttle, and then he moves off in the opposite direction, responding to an order from his superior.

Someday, Mothma thinks, the galaxy will look back at everything she has done, everything she has set in motion, and it will hold her accountable.

At least, that is her hope.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I personally like to believe that "Mon" was a family name, and "Mothma" was her given name. Just a little Chandrillan headcanon. 
> 
> [Airen Cracken](http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Airen_Cracken) was the official Head of Rebel Intelligence, with General Draven his right hand man (which, interestingly, makes Cassian number 3 in the chain, if we hold to Rogue One's implication that Cassian was Draven's right hand man as well as a Fulcrum agent under Ahsoka Tano).
> 
> [Tynnra](http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Tynnra_Pamlo) refers to another Senator who joined the Alliance with Mothma, and served as the 'Minister of Education' in the Alliance's official civic government (yeah, they had a government already in place during the war, because remember, this was a 'legal rebellion,' thus requiring all the trappings of a formed nation-state/galactic governing body). I figured a Minister of Education might have some beef with child soldiers in specific, aside from personal morality.


End file.
